1. Field of Art
The disclosure generally relates to the field of display screens, and more specifically, to display of selectable information within a bounded screen area.
2. Description of the Art
Computing devices with small screens, for example, smartphones and functionality enhanced mobile phones, are well known. Such computing devices include screens that display network and application user interfaces, for example, web browser pages or applets. These user interfaces may have a large volume of information that includes selectable objects within the rendered user interface. Moreover, the screens are configured to be touch sensitive to allow direct interaction with the user interface through the screen.
One problem with having such selectable objects within a rendered user interface is that the objects often are difficult to read due to the small viewing area. Another problem with selectable objects within the rendered user interface is that the selectable objects are often in very close proximity to each other, for example, adjacent to each other. Hence, a user is required to have very fine motor skills in order to select a desired selectable object. Such fine motor skills often are difficult to apply and in such instances a wrong selectable object is often selected.
One attempt to address the shortcomings of the art has been to allow a user to manually increase the zoom of the user interface being rendered. However, invoking that zoom feature enlarges the entire user interface, typically forcing out of view from a screen portions of the originally rendered user interface. Often the portions of the user interface forced out of view include the relevant elements sought to be zoomed, including potentially selectable links. Moreover, many user interfaces lack mechanisms to allow zooming.
Hence, the art lacks, inter alia, a mechanism for enlarging relevant portions of a user interface without requiring interacting with application commands for zooming.